The Myth Of Perfect Parenting: Raising Good Kids In Imperfect Homes

The weakest part of humanity that is our strongest if we learn to accept it is our imperfections. God who created us have said it that we can only thrive to be perfect beings and that is what He counts as perfection. So failing to want to be perfect shouldn't be among us at all.

If we are made perfect by God but are also imperfect as humans, why do we expect children to naturally become good or bad according to our expectations? From birth, only God knows what every children's future holds and I believe each of them have the choice to change whatever it is.

There are no perfect way to raise a child no matter how prepared the parents must have been, but it's less of a myth that parents can be perfect in bringing up their children to be great people in the society. Sad to say but it's happening, many kids do forget their upbringing.

While on our way out, mum and I came across a guy who is disturbing transporters on the road to get 100-200 naira from them, his source of livelihood and my mum said something in pidgin "Even this one, parents did party to celebrate his birth, oh it's a baby boy!" it got me deep thinking.

He didn't look good at all, tattered and speaking so ill-mannered to anyone. I began to wonder if he was actually trained that way or situations and environment has taken this one away. I've seen parents who actually don't mind teaching their kids this way so I won't be surprised about that.

But then, there is also the vice versa of this case, parents who try their best to bring up their children well but still end up suffering from all their children's mischief. It's a really sad case but it is what is happening in our world today. So I thought, can good kids be raised in a bad home?

As much as we do say it always, every parent wants to have the best children out there in any aspect they can be but as much as we fail to acknowledge, not every parent want to put in the work to make their children be the great beings in life. I know the choice will be the child's later but the parents have a big role to play in upbringing.

I'm not a parent yet but I understand to a good extent how tasking parenting can be and if I am to look at my own experience growing under a parent's guide, it isn't the perfect example but many would learn and understand that parenting requires more than birthing and naming children.

Even for parents who put in their best to raise their children in the best ways possible, their children still grow to make the choice for themselves if to be bad or be good. After all, man is made of the two, good and bad but we decide which to work and improve on to better our lives.

So if you ask me, I'd say everything about a human turning out good or bad is simply toss of dice. We can only try to nurture them in what we think is right, for Christians, we try to instil God's fear in our children and we continue to pray that they don't depart from it learned as they grow up.